Pennsylvania Ends General Assistance Payments to Poor, Disabled
Pennsylvania Ends General Assistance Payments to Poor, Disabled
A program that provides $200 a month to more than sixty thousand poor and disabled Pennsylvanians will end August 1 under the budget passed by the state legislature last week, Bloomberg News reports.
The elimination of the program — which primarily serves childless low-income adults who are disabled or victims of domestic violence and who generally do not qualify for federally funded cash assistance — is expected to save the state $150 million. Pennsylvania joins eight other states, including Illinois, Kansas and Maine, that have eliminated or reduced general cash assistance programs since 2011.
"Pennsylvania has its hands tied" because of federal mandates, Carey Miller, a spokeswoman for the state's Welfare Department, told Bloomberg News. "We were forced to look at state-only funded programs and this was one instance we were forced to eliminate."
The $200 checks provide "a temporary bridge to stability" for beneficiaries as they await decisions on Social Security applications for disability benefits, said Michael Froehlich, a lawyer with Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, a nonprofit organization that counsels low-income residents. "You take away that program, and there's nowhere else for folks to turn," he added. "It will inevitably lead to increased homelessness and more people...on the streets."
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